Dondero: Herbs add nice flavor to sangria

Le Gourmet Fauche

Posted: Wednesday, August 04, 2010

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Sangria, the popular wine punch from Spain, owes its charming name to the Spanish word for bloodletting.

Typically sangria is red, and classically it is made with wine from Rioja in Northern Spain. But there also is white sangria. And various wines can be used successfully, though they should neither be matured in oak barrels nor too expensive.

Beyond wine, sangria usually contains cut-up fruit, fruit juice and ice. Optional ingredients include sweetening, brandy or vodka or a fruit liqueur to spike it, and carbonated water for sparkle.

Recently, I prepared red sangria for an open-house reception at my daughter Maria's pottery studio. We chose sangria as a lightly alcoholic cold drink for a warm summer evening.

I thought about adding homegrown herbs - new at least for me - to the traditional drink. Lavender leaves in particular piqued my imagination. I vaguely recalled Olivia Sargeant of Farm 255 telling me they sometimes put lavender in desserts and drinks.

By coincidence, two evenings before Maria's studio reception, an Emory grad student from a Mexican-American family from Austin, Texas, mentioned the sangria she recently had fixed for a party. She said she often puts fresh herbs in sangria, especially white sangria.

That imprimatur from someone culturally knowledgeable sealed it. I added both lavender and mint to the sangria for the reception. The comments from the crowd were positive.

Herbs in sangria are not common. The many and varied sangria recipes I later checked did not include herbs. Only a Google search for "herbs" and "sangria" together found recipes. But "Maywine," an old-fashioned spring drink in Germany, is white wine infused with sweet woodruff.

For convenience in preparing multiple batches of sangria, I made a jar of the fruit juice concentrates (allowed to defrost), sliced and plastic-bagged the fruits and rinsed the herb sprigs. Then at the event, I combined portions of the wine, juice concentrate, fruit, herb sprigs and ice directly in the punchbowl.

For public consumption on a hot night, I did not fortify the sangria with distilled spirits. For home use, I would add some brandy to make up for the dilution from the fruit juice and ice.

The economical wine I used, successfully I thought, was Gallo Livingston Burgundy, which comes in 3-liter jugs. For a smaller quantity, I would choose a modestly priced merlot from California or Chile.

I used organic strawberries and oranges. Other traditional sangria fruits can include peaches, apples, berries or even cucumbers.

The juices were orange, pineapple and limeade. Apple juice could have replaced the limeade. Frozen juice concentrates are convenient. The needed amounts can be scooped from their containers and the remainder stored frozen for other purposes.